Discovery (Vampire Weekend/Ra Ra Riot) — “I Want You Back” — LP
Is it me, or did everything jump the shark for a second? Wes Miles of Ra Ra Riot is a crack vocalist for a secretly seething band, and Rostam Batmanglij of Vampire Weekend is an inoffensive element of an exceedingly bland one. Together, they’re Discovery, a glossy electro-pop side project out to conquer Brooklyn Summer 2K9. Will the often ungainly LP sway our favorite fickle borough? With tracks like “Slang Tang” resembling Animal Collective outtakes, it’s got a shot, but for all the wrong reasons. An auto-tuned version of the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back,” a song curiously untouchable except in cases of veteran wedding bands, is a conscious all-in gamble for young white indie darlings, and they lose big. Consider: their slow-burning intro vs. the original’s opening punch, the gutting of a holy bass line vs. a holy bass line, twinkly haze vs. utter groove. What the shit—it’s like they sucked the fun and flavor from a beloved classic, drop by drop, and handed us a plain ice freezer pop.
